


copenhagen

by screamlet



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-07 15:57:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14084424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screamlet/pseuds/screamlet
Summary: William had already casually texted Nicky a photo of the sunset, a cool littlehaha bet you don’t have this in GÄVLE, but there was no response. Gävle had Nicky and William didn’t and it wasbullshit.The other side of William’s bench shook and William looked up from his phone, expecting some rude asshole to have sat down to try and pick him up or talk to him about nature or some other fucking garbage he didn’t need right now.Alex Ovechkin was smiling at him, an arm stretched across the back of his bench.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this wouldn't have happened without [hoosierbitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoosierbitch/profile) sending this amazing TFLN my way, saying "i thought of nylander/backstrom and their various boyfriends, and i thought of you!" which. goddamn. that's nice. thank you for this.
>
>> (425): Disregard everything I texted you last night. Oh, and disregard me hooking up with your boyfriend. ([source](https://twitter.com/TFLN/status/970328310017380353))
> 
>   
> and always thank you to [babygotbackstrom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/babygotbackstrom/) and [angularmomentum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angularmomentum/) for listening to me whine about boys and their feelings. 

After team dinner, the boys of Tre Kronor had split up into various factions to wander around Copenhagen, with some of the boring old men retreating to the hotel for Netflix and knee replacements before practice the next afternoon. Outside the restaurant, William wandered from group to group, overhearing their plans and committing to none of them. Traveling with the team for Worlds was kind of a free-for-all like that. 

Once everyone went their separate ways, William went to the waterfront to capture the sunset and feel sorry for himself.

He wasn’t supposed to be bitter but, _surprise_ : he was extremely bitter. William had the honor to play for his country again this spring and all it cost was his team losing in the playoffs. He was playing amazing hockey on the world stage for his home with twenty-something guys who weren’t the worst he could imagine. He was by himself, watching the city and the sky and the water transform into a dozen postcards in front of his eyes, but he wasn’t happy. 

Nicky was supposed to be here. 

Nicky was supposed to be on this shitty bench with him. Each of Nicky’s arms weighed approximately six hundred pounds; it was spring and one of those lead weights was supposed to lie across William’s shoulders and hold him close. William was supposed to be leaning into a strong, broad chest and planning a summer’s worth of barbecues and workouts in Gävle. He and Nicky were supposed to discuss who came to Camp Steak and Murder, how many weddings they would ditch between May and September, all the semi-public places they would fuck if they managed to win gold again this year. 

Instead, Nicky was missing Worlds to see some specialists about his shoulder. He wouldn’t come to Copenhagen for days yet, maybe more if the American doctors were as useless as they seemed and Nicky actually needed some sort of emergency procedure that would throw a wrench into how much fucking William needed this spring. 

_Fuck_ , he needed Nicky. 

Nothing on his phone. He had already casually texted Nicky a photo of the sunset, a cool little _haha bet you don’t have this in GÄVLE_ , but there was no response. Gävle had Nicky and William didn’t and it was _bullshit_. 

The other side of William’s bench shook and William looked up from his phone, expecting some rude asshole to have sat down to try and pick him up or talk to him about nature or some other fucking garbage he didn’t need right now. 

Alex Ovechkin was smiling at him, an arm stretched across the back of his bench.

“Nicky text you?” Alex asked. 

William looked at his phone again, the one that hadn’t buzzed in the time he had been holding it. “Nope. You?”

“No,” Alex sighed. “I think maybe it’s—you know, season over, he goes back to you. But he’s coming here after doctors?”

William shoved his phone into his hoodie pocket. “He said he was, but he didn’t say when. He’s seeing some specialists.”

Alex nodded, then looked at William and shrugged. “You know him. He doesn’t want to hear how long it’s going to take. He’s going to see doctors until they tell him it’s less time.” 

“He’s an idiot.”

“Big idiot,” Alex agreed. 

They sat in silence for a while, a comfortable silence that William wasn’t exactly used to experiencing. It reminded him of afternoons with Nicky during the summer, those two or three blessed hours an afternoon when Nicky’s trainer hadn’t scheduled anything except strictly regulated breathing and hydrating. They would arrive in Nicky’s house and drop onto the couch, Nicky sitting up with his legs splayed while William curled up on the rest of the couch, his head on one of Nicky’s enormous thighs. It was a stillness and quiet that didn’t have William itching to claw his skin off; he was surprised to feel it here, now, sitting next to Alex. 

“What is it about you old assholes, you’re always quiet and it feels like nothing, like it’s fine?” William demanded. 

Alex laughed. “What?”

“I don’t know,” William said. 

“Here, let’s take a picture for Nicky,” Alex said. “You miss him, I miss him, then I found you. Lucky thing, you know?”

William’s mouth said, “Oh, yeah, lucky thing running into a world class hockey player at the annual international tournament for world class hockey players.”

William’s ass edged along the bench until he was pressed against Alex, who wrapped a warm, snug arm around his shoulders. William leaned in as Alex pulled out his phone and waved his camera arm around, finding the best angle for both their faces. 

“You’re good at this,” William said. “You take a lot of selfies? Nicky never sends me any.”

“I know, he only lets me take them,” Alex said as he took a few test shots, then a few more. “He says I don’t make his face look like a bowl of mashed potatoes.” Alex let William go and pulled up the photos to look at them, but he scoffed, too. “Like potatoes are bad??”

William took note of the recent shots in Alex’s camera roll—shirtless photos of him and the boys in Washington, all of them in varying degrees of nudity and playoff beards, him and some staff, him and reporters, him and everyone, collecting photos like a yearbook of people he would never see again. Morbid asshole. 

“I like this one,” William said when they came to their photos, their pasty faces almost glowing in the sunset over the water, a warm streetlight flicking on over them and helping out the colors. “Send it to him.”

“I’ll send it to you, you send it to him,” Alex said.

“Why? Oh, because it’s summer and I’m the summer husband?” William asked. He was delighted (and a little embarrassed) when Alex blushed and looked down at his phone. “You know it’s—dude, it’s not like that.” 

“No, it’s not,” Alex said. “But it is a little.” 

“It’s not!”

“You text him,” Alex said. “Anyway, I’m—” Alex motioned with his thumb over his shoulder, back towards the boulevard that ran along the waterfront.

“Where are you going?” William asked. “Team stuff? Date stuff? Sex stuff? Hockey stuff?”

“Stuff stuff.” Alex laughed. “No, just—”

The two of them were quiet again. William had the photo from Alex opened on his phone. Their text thread was a strange and lonely one. The last time either of them had texted the other, William had been visiting Nicky in Washington and texted Alex a photo of Nicky grilling in socks and sandals on New Year’s Eve. 

(Nicky had wrestled the phone away from him, burying it until the stroke of midnight, after they kissed, when they had to wish other people in the world a year as good as theirs.) 

“Send it to Nicky, say hi from me,” Alex said. “Let’s walk.” 

“Okay,” William said. “Okay, let’s walk.”

*

As they walked, Sasha eagerly made small talk with William because he had to disguise the fact that he had absolutely no fucking idea what to say to him. Something about the two of them fucking the same man but rarely speaking directly to each other made it doubly, triply awkward, and Sasha was okay with putting off that conversation as long as he could. 

“Nicky thinks he won’t come to Worlds at all,” William finally said. “He can be a real bitch sometimes.”

“Ha, yeah,” Sasha said. “Real bitch.”

“Yeah?” William asked. 

Sasha had agreed and laughed because it was funny, but did William want more? Did he want to know more? God, they were so old and they had lived with each other’s bodies for _so long_ ; how could Sasha bring someone else into this?

“Remember last season, when I fucked up my knee in the playoffs? Nicky helped me off the ice, all he said was, _you fix that fucking knee because if I win the cup without you, I’ll fucking murder you, I’ll never forgive you_.”

“He did not,” William laughed.

Shit, maybe Sasha was blowing up Nicky’s spot with his young, innocent boyfriend. _Shit_. Why did people want him to talk?

“Haha, just a joke,” Sasha said.

William laughed harder. “Come on! I know it’s not! He’s a fucking beast. I know he’d take your knee apart and replace it with some of those resistance bands from the gym.” 

“Oh look, text from Nicky, that’s what he’s doing to his shoulder right now,” Sasha said, playfully holding up his phone. William dove for it for real, then looked disappointed that he’d fallen for it. What a stupid angel. 

“You think he won’t come see us?” William asked.

“Us? Just you. Time for Swedes now.”

“No,” William snapped. “You—why don’t you text him during the summer?”

Sasha tried to look as stupid as possible.

“You don’t text him, like, ever. I know, man, I’m with him every day, he’s an old man who likes to read all his texts aloud, like, _hey look what Erik just sent me_ and _Andre bought another expensive car, this idiot_ , and it’s never you. You just disappear.”

Sasha didn’t answer. 

“Is it Russia? Are they watching your SIM card and shit?”

“What? _No_?”

“So why do you just totally abandon Nicky every summer?”

“I don’t. We need space,” Sasha said. “We’re together all year, we lose every year, and I—you understand. You just text your Auston like it’s nothing after you lose?”

“Uh, _yeah_.” As proof, William pulled out his phone again—had it ever left his hand? Probably not!—and tapped and scrolled for a moment. “It’s seven o’clock here, it’s one o’clock in the desert, and Auston’s having sushi tacos for lunch—oh, sorry, I can’t call it that, he says: _It’s ceviche fucking google it you fucking clown_.” William held up his phone, showed Sasha the photo and the text. William hadn’t read aloud the x’s and heart emojis and crying emojis afterward. These kids were wild with their feelings, or maybe just with William. 

“And now I’m gonna text him again,” William added.

William turned on his heel and halted Sasha with an arm around his waist, pulling him in and catching them smiling under another streetlight. William snapped some photos, but Sasha hated the way his own face looked in them—old and grizzled, mean like a Lundqvist. No, Henrik smiled sometimes. Mean like the old Russian man he was becoming. 

“Hold on, hold on, let me smile,” Sasha protested. “Say something funny.”

“What? You can’t smile without me? I have to help you? Does Nicky help you get that smile all big and full, too, when you’re together? I can help, too, I guess, but I have to take it slow—”

Sasha cracked up. He hated this kid and he loved this kid. What an asshole. He was Nicky’s all over. 

“Oh, Aus texted back,” William said. “ _When are we meeting up, bring your friend he looks chill_.”

“I’m not chill,” Sasha said.

William snorted. “You should come to Sweden, though. You haven’t seen Nicky’s house. It’s so tacky, you’d love it.”

“How’d you let him be tacky?”

“I've _seen_ your place, man, I should fucking ask you.”

“Tacky makes him happy. Tacky makes _me_ happy.”

William looked skeptical, but they walked on all the same. 

*

“Let’s get a drink,” Alex said. “Lundqvist told me about a place, good, private. Right over there.”

“What are you doing talking to our goalie?” William asked, immediately following Alex’s lead. “Assuming it’s the goalie you talked to, not Joel. I don’t know, you know everyone, whatever.”

“ _My_ goalie,” Alex said. 

“Uh—”

“Playing that old man as long as I’ve been playing here,” Alex said. “What do you know?”

“We’re not in America anymore.”

“Shut up, you know.”

“ _You_ know,” William snapped back. 

The bar was exactly as dark as something Henrik would recommend, precisely lit to accentuate cheekbones like Henrik’s, while everyone else found forgiveness in the shadows. Alex looked over his shoulder, checking to see William was following; William was a little disappointed to see the lighting made Alex look handsome, rich, even more mysterious. He lifted his chin and followed, biting the inside of his lip and quirking his mouth, hoping he had something to offer in return. 

They were led to a smaller room off the main one, rounded booths cut out of the walls in order to keep a thick slab of wall between each booth for privacy. Extremely Henrik, William thought, catching a glance at that other echelon of hockey that his father had never touched and he and his brother Alex probably wouldn’t, either. William took the seat across from Alex, but considered sliding all the way around so he was sitting next to him. Maybe it would make him laugh. Maybe things would finally get a little weird and he’d see whatever had kept Nicky practically married to his fading mop of hair for eleven years. 

“You order,” Alex said. “What’s good here?”

“I’ve never—”

“Here, Denmark, Scandinavia, whatever,” Alex said with a wave of his hand.

William ordered two of the nine hundred pilsners on the menu and took out his phone.

“What are you telling him?” 

“Just that I ordered you a pilsner because I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Alex cracked a smile and when their drinks arrived, they toasted to each other. 

“Why’d you come walk with me?” Alex asked.

William raised his eyebrows and stared at Alex.

“The fuck do I know,” he finally said. “You asked.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“What, you want me to go?”

Alex laughed again, but it wasn’t—it wasn’t the obnoxious jackass laugh that William had earned once or twice as they walked along the water. This was Casual Locker Room Interview, Acceptable Player Banter laughter, and William _hated_ that little chuckle-laugh that didn’t reach Alex’s eyes, hated hated hated it more than he hated anything or anyone on the planet in that exact moment. He couldn’t wait to be an old bastard like Nicky, who said whatever the fuck he wanted in the driest monotone he could manage and called it his sense of humor. 

“Just asking,” Alex said. “You looked—you’re not out with the team, not picking up—”

“Why would I pick up?” William asked. “Nicky’s coming any day.”

“Is he?” Alex asked.

“He better be,” William said. “He said he would come. He doesn’t lie to me.” 

“Nicky’s very boring, he doesn’t lie to anyone,” Alex said. “He said he’s coming, then he’s coming.”

“Did he tell _you_ he was coming?”

“I asked what you were doing tonight!” Alex said. It was hilarious that Alex was already exasperated with him, three sips into their beers, five minutes into their summers. “I asked why you were alone.”

“I’m not alone.” William held up his phone. “And you showed up. Before you showed up, I had been alone for like, all of forty-five seconds. Dude, I didn’t even fly out of Toronto alone.”

“So you could tell me to fuck off, but you didn’t.”

“I’m not rude.”

“You could be.”

“I wasn’t going to tell you to fuck off, you’re—” It was William’s turn to wave his arms in some elaborate _shut the fuck up you know who you are_ dance-shrug that made Alex snort, like for real. That was good, that was a win. 

With that tiny crack in the veneer, William realized why Polite Casual Ovi drove him fucking insane, and it was because of his father. William tried not to think very much about the unwashed greaseball version of Nicky that lived in the family basement for two years, but William remembered 22-year-old Alex with perfect clarity since he was so often linked with his father’s anger. 

Nicky would ride to-and-from Kettler and downtown D.C. with either William’s father or Alex. Whenever Alex showed up to pick up or drop off Nicky, he would stop in to say hello to the Nylanders and it was _exactly_ like a boy coming to date Nicky. Alex would show up and be his most polite, most charming self for the Nylander family, and as soon as he walked out the door, William’s father would roll his eyes at what a sleazy shitbag Alex was, condescending to everyone, a show-off who was using Nicky to rack up goals but would drop him as soon as Ted Leonsis shipped Nicky off for someone flashier and better. 

Of course, then the Nylanders moved to Michigan, so. His dad _may_ have been projecting a little.

“I don’t know you at all,” William finally said. “Isn’t that fucked up? That you’re—and I’m—” 

“You don’t have any more hand gestures for _fucking the same man_?” Alex asked.

“Shut up,” William laughed. “God, you’re an asshole.” William shook it off and took another sip of his beer. He leaned on the table and looked at Alex for a long moment. “But. Yeah. _Yeah_. I mean. Isn’t that something?”

“It’s something,” Alex said. “What is it?”

William kept his eyes on Alex: Alex’s sharp blue eyes, his fucked up nose, the lines around his eyes, the heavy chains around his neck and the one thousand bracelets around his right wrist. He had the sudden thought of Alex pinning him down in a bed, his wrist and those bracelets within sight, a sight William could sink his teeth into, strings and beads against his lips, then Alex’s fingers in his mouth, kissing William and fucking his mouth. 

“You’re something,” William said. Alex laughed again.

*

Years ago, when Sasha had managed to get Nicky into bed and to keep him coming back, Sasha undertook an experiment to see if he and Nicky were ever _not_ eating, playing, sleeping, or fucking.

_And what’s wrong with that_ , Nicky had asked. _What’s wrong with any of those things?_

They had scraped together five minutes on a road trip to do none of those things: Nicky had stayed over the night before and Sasha had found within his soul the strength to turn off his alarm and stay awake. He turned over in bed to face Nicky, who always woke up with the first alarm, and kissed him good morning. It was a soft press of lips, followed by Sasha burying his face in Nicky’s neck, breathing him in before he backed up again to get a good look at Nicky, his soft green eyes, the confused little smirk on his lips. 

_Oh_ , Nicky had said. _You like me._

_Didn’t you know?_

And Nicky said nothing, only kissed him again, which Sasha took for—well, a lot of things. _No, I didn’t know. Yes, of course I knew. Yes, I like you. You love me? Yes, I love you, too._

It was probably wrong to call it a Swedish thing, but William was a little younger than Nicky was back then, and he had the same sort of look on his face. It was more curious than fond, and something about that balance struck Sasha as… 

Was it so terrible that he hoped for one person, just once, to see him and feel something besides curiosity? Could he ever be, to anyone, more than a curiosity, a legend, a name and a number? 

It was unfair to lay that on William, but it was William who sat across from him now, and William who kept texting Nicky, and William who had learned how _exactly_ to keep Sasha at an arm’s length so as not to get the wrong idea that what they had could go any further than this table, than this evening (or further than the season, or Sasha’s apartment during the lockout in Moscow). 

“Why don’t you come to Sweden?” William asked. 

Sweden was so out of the question, so out of the realm of possibility, that Sasha honestly did not fucking know why William kept harping on it. He looked like he  _wanted_ an answer, like he  _wanted_ Sasha to say yes. He looked like he meant it, as much as he could mean anything. 

“I told you, I have things in Russia.”

“No, I mean this summer,” William said. “Come to Sweden. Stay with Nicky. Why don’t you come to Sweden?”

“What, with you?”

“With _us_.”

Sasha snorted. 

“What?” 

“It’s summer,” Sasha said. 

“We all speak English,” William said. “Is it the food? Nicky gets a side of beef sent to him when he’s home and he keeps steaks of it in a freezer in his garage—that’s why he has so many hungry hockey players come over for training and barbecues. If you came to stay, you could help us eat all that steak.”

“What the _shit_ are you talking about?”

William polished off the rest of his beer and pushed the hair from his eyes. Sasha could see what Nicky saw in him, why Nicky wanted to fuck him: that kind of desirable where he wanted William and wanted to _be_ William. If Nicky had arrived in Washington with William’s face, William’s hair, William’s easy smile and talent, Sasha wouldn’t have waited so long to ask Nicky to be with him, to think about loving him. 

No, he would have waited even longer. William was this new breed of boy who kept himself so on the surface that he was all veneer, all clear and smooth and beautiful, all light-hearted, gently simmering want that he could pull away at the slightest hint of refusal. Sasha wouldn’t have stood a chance, not in this life or any other. 

“I don’t know how you can leave him every year,” William finally said. “How can you be with him so much and _leave_ him? And how can he leave you? How do—you’ve been Nicky-and-Ovi for so long, but every year you _leave_ each other.”

“You think he’ll leave you?” Sasha asked. “You think he won’t come here, this is how he ends things with you? That’s not Nicky.”

“No, it’ll be worse,” William said. “He’ll ghost me, probably. Tell me he’s too busy. Say he’ll do something then apologize when he doesn’t. Stop answering my texts. He’ll—”

Sasha reached across the table and snatched the phone out of William’s hand. He cracked a little grin at William’s outrage, laughing when William slid around the smooth leather of the booth to come to Sasha’s side and try to wrestle the phone out of his hand.

“No, no, sit back and look sad,” Sasha said. “Nicky has to know he’s making you sad.”

“No fucking way,” William said. He had an odd way of tearing up, laughing and wiping his eyes and shaking tears from his eyes like a soaking wet dog drying itself out. “Stop, put it down—”

“You’re so pretty when you cry.”

“I hate you,” William laughed. That was the perfect shot: William in the warm light of their booth, pushing his hair back, his eyes shiny and vividly blue, annoyed but smiling about it.

Sasha held the phone out to William, who examined the photo, smiled at himself, then tapped a few things. Off it went to Nicky. 

Then William put the phone face down, cupped Sasha’s face in his two firm hands, and pulled Sasha in for a kiss, a heady fucking knockout compared to the beer on their lips. 

*

In the cab to Alex’s hotel, William’s phone buzzed right next to the heel of Alex’s hand rubbing against William’s dick. Alex laughed against William’s mouth while William pulled the cockblocking brick out of his pants.

“Captain Lundqvist,” William muttered as he texted back. “ _I’m with Ovi is that ok_.”

“Why wouldn’t it be okay?”

“I dunno, there’s curfews and stuff.”

“Not for me. Not for you.”

_Hahaha we’ll tell Nicke on you!!!!!! Be safe!!!!!!!_ Joel used way too many bitmoji.

“I’ll tell Nicky on me,” William said, mostly to himself. 

“Hmm?”

William arched his neck, baring it to Alex in brazen invitation, and stretched his arm out to get the shot. The photo was sloppy, barely illuminated by a streetlight passing over them in the cab, but rushed off to Nicky anyway. William tucked the phone away again and gripped Alex tighter, whispering _more_ and gasping as Alex’s teeth obliged. 

The pride of Russian hockey had a suite all to himself, so William was going to demand Alex fuck him on those elegant wood tables at some point, _after_ the crazy luxurious bed that William caught a glimpse of before Alex hoisted him up against the door of the suite. 

“You look smaller on skates,” Alex said as William failed to stay pinned. William cackled and earned another bite against his neck, above the hollow of his collarbones. William pushed against Alex, Alex’s hand moving up his shirt to play with one of his nipples, the other firmly groping William’s ass. 

“Maybe you’re just—fuck, _fuck_ —you’re ridiculous, and our man is a refrigerator, and there’s no comparing us, okay?”

Alex laughed and stepped away from the door. “Come on, bed. Or—water? Drink? Anything?”

“Water’s good,” William said as he walked to the bedroom, stripping the entire way. 

While Alex grabbed water for the two of them, William sent a picture of the untouched bed to Nicky. He’d run out of captions about the same time as he had run out of good sense, back when he had kissed Alex for laughing, for looking at him like he liked him.

There was a cold touch against William’s back. He yelped and turned to see Alex grinning at him as he set glasses of water on one of the nightstands. He took off his shirt and, having William’s full attention, motioned to the bed. “Nicky gets this, too?”

William nodded. His mouth had dried up, suddenly, for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Alex’s hands started on his belt and William took out his phone again, framing another photo of their hands resting on Alex’s belt buckle, William’s knuckles against the bare skin of Alex’s stomach. Once he sent that to Nicky, William tossed his phone on the bed and jabbed his finger into Alex’s belly button. Alex laughed, that terrible sharp cackle they seemed to share, and pushed William down onto bed, undressing as he stood over him. 

He reached a hand out and Alex took it without question. William pulled Alex down on top of him, cradling Alex between his legs the way he had wanted to since the beer had settled in his veins and whispered about what an _amazing_ idea that would be, reminding William how _good_ it felt to have a bigger, heavier guy on him, kissing him, grinding against him, all things Alex had done very well so far. 

“Does Nicky kiss you like this?” Alex asked.

“Like—like, in bed? Like—”

“Does he kiss you—” A press of Alex’s lips, a thumb across William’s cheek, another kiss to his other cheek. “—Just to kiss you.”

William stared, completely still, his lungs completely stupid at that breathing _thing_ they had done so well for most of his life to date. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

“I was just asking,” Alex said, too softly, his fingers combing through William’s hair, his eyes searching William’s face. “He’s my best friend and we—he doesn’t talk to me about it. About you.”

William stared back at him for a moment, then pulled Alex in for a kiss, something a thousand times more electric than they shared at the bar. William’s every nerve pushed against Alex, wanting Alex and movement and friction and slickness. He wanted the brilliant shocking electric blue of Alex’s eyes to somehow light William up from the inside, as impossible as that was. There was something so bright in his eyes, deep and rich and sad and hopeful as he asked William if Nicky ever kissed him. If Nicky loved him. 

It was too much for William, who broke the kiss and gasped against Alex, then kissed the corner of his mouth, his cheeks, his jaw, his nose, every part of his handsomely busted face that finally looked like Alex, like Nicky’s Sasha, like a person who needed love. Like a person William could love. 

*

Sasha had made a grave mistake with William in thinking that he couldn’t be serious. That he didn’t have—fuck, there were a million words for the things forced on Sasha over the years—the dignity, sobriety, the gravitas to be a great hockey player, to be a good captain, to be a person worth more than flashy goals and failed playoff runs and quick fucks. Sasha had to adopt that specific kind of mask to make him worth others’ time. He used it with Nicky, too, when Nicky ran off to Sweden and Sasha to Russia; Sasha’s commitment to keeping his distance earned him a few texts and photos, and a promise to see each other again in September. 

William was beautiful and joyful, but even as he smiled Sasha could see how much he needed to hear what Sasha had to learn for himself. 

“You’re beautiful,” Sasha said. His hand had been on William’s cock, but moved away to rub at William’s hip, his ass, his fingers running along the crease of his thighs, little things that kept William breathing fast while his eyes were fixed on Sasha’s. “Nicky’s selfish to keep you for himself. No wonder he’s selfish. I’d ask too many questions, and then he’d have to share. He’d have to be nice to you and to me, and feel a feeling, and then he’d die and we’d both be sad.” 

William burst out laughing and they kissed again. Sasha could feel William’s face turning red hot with embarrassment as he strained against Sasha’s weight, hard against Sasha’s hip, the sharp bitchy little smile now soft and open in a way Sasha hadn’t imagined before. He wanted William inside him and told him so, whispered it to hear William swear under his breath and push himself on top of Sasha. 

William’s fingers felt large and thick as he smoothly opened Sasha up and kissed the side of Sasha’s neck. He breathed hard and asked if it was okay, if Sasha knew how good he felt and how good Sasha was at taking his fingers. Someone new learning him, taking him apart, taking care of him like his body needed it—

Like his body needed to be handled as if it was new, unknown and untested, and also precious. It was precious to him, to Sasha, the only body he had, but how long since anyone else had seen him for the first time and thought so, too?

“What hurts?” William whispered as he slid into Sasha, looking so confident and in control until he let out a small gasp that Sasha would think about every night until he died. “I’ll—I don’t want to hurt you but I’ll also literally fucking die if I don’t fuck you until the wheels come off.” 

They laughed, William doing his best to laugh with him and fuck him and maybe not cry. Sasha wrapped his legs tight around William, pulling William into him, the two of them crying out in the silence of the bedroom. They hissed profanities at each other because every name was wrong: _William_ too formal, _Willie_ too ridiculous, _Alex_ too brotherly, _Sasha_ too intimate, _Ovi_ too distant. It didn’t matter as William stifled a moan against Sasha’s shoulder, whispering, “Fuck me, _fuck_ , promise you’ll fuck me after this, you can’t go, _I_ can’t go without—” That was worth more than any name they could find for each other. 

The way William shuddered against Sasha, kissing him weakly as their hands found Sasha's cock between them, the two of them working to finish Sasha off—that was worth more than a lot of things, too. William shifted in the afterglow to kiss new parts of him, bite Sasha a little, taste their sweat mingled together. His lips lingered to learn the feel of Sasha’s skin. He was learning like he wanted to remember, like they would come back to this place. 

“Come here,” Sasha said. 

“Yes,” William said, moving up his body and kissing him. He smiled when he kissed Sasha, and Sasha smiled, too. They were funny and sloppy, their foreheads pressed together as they laughed at what they had done. It was summer and for once, Sasha felt warm and whole. 

“I know you’re old, but,” William began. Sasha laughed again and grabbed at him, pulling William close so he could feel just how old Sasha was. “But I promised the coffee table and that couch in the living room that we’d be out there to fuck at some point.” 

“Meeting your friends already? You always rush like this?”

“Shut up, oh my god, _I’m just saying_ ,” William laughed. “Can you get us more water without leaving me?”

“No,” Sasha said.

The last photo William took was his face pressed against Sasha’s chest, his hair in his eyes, his smile entirely full of himself (and Sasha). 

“Yeah, I’m okay dying of dehydration. We had a good run,” William sighed as he made the phone disappear. 

Sasha agreed.


	2. Chapter 2

Nicky woke up in Stockholm with the sun shining into his hotel room. It was May, the eleventh spring in a row they exited the playoffs early, his right shoulder ached and nagged him every moment he was alive for the past two weeks, and the night before he had shut off his phone to avoid William and Alex and every-fucking-one else who thought it was their responsibility to cheer him up. 

There was a sunbeam falling across his bed. He fetched his phone from under his pillow, turned it on, and edged a little into the sun-warmed spot on the other side of the bed. 

There was a hideous number of new texts, but that was normal; people kept adding Nicky to group chats and he kept muting them— _holy shit, keep a thought inside your fucking head for once_. 

Five new texts from Alex, 78 from William. 

Alex had sent him a picture of Copenhagen during the sunset, then a picture of William on a bench. 

_hahahahhaah_

_we found each other!!!!!!!!!!! )))))))))))_

_are u here too????_

Nicky switched to the thread with William, a similar mix of photos and fragmented texts. 

Tre Kronor at dinner. Erik’s summer braid. The five or six children on the Worlds roster for that spring. The Lundqvists standing in front of some hotel mirrors, turning two Lundqvists into infinite Lundqvists, the fucking horror. The sunset. The water. Alex. A selfie with Alex. A well-lit picture of Alex. Alex’s sneakers. _these are so cool???????? you should get some!!!!!!_

Another selfie with Alex, this time both of them standing under a golden streetlight, William pressed close to Alex’s side, William beaming and Alex looking—warm. Not just because of the light, but warm in the photo, like they had been laughing, like Alex was laughing _and meant it_.

(Alex loved to laugh; it was a shame he was usually faking it.) 

Random texts about tacos, beer, snippets of conversation that made no sense to Nicky—

A dim photo of William laughing with tear tracks down his cheeks, which could mean anything, really. 

Alex’s head bent over William’s bare neck, blurry but unmistakable. 

A photo of the two of them in a golden elevator. William’s back to Alex’s chest, his head leaning back to rest on Alex’s shoulder, Alex’s arms around William, everything gold and distorted by the shitty reflective panels of the elevator. 

A massive untouched bed, all the covers and decor done in a champagne color. It was just a bed, but Nicky knew. 

Alex’s hands on his belt buckle, William’s hand on top of Alex’s hands. He knew those hands anywhere. Nicky stared too long at William’s knuckle brushing the thick trail of hair on Alex’s stomach. His own hand traveled under the sheets, feeling his own smoother skin, how it could never compare to either of them. 

William smiling, his face pressed against Alex’s chest, his eyes hidden by his hair—sweaty, limp hair hanging across his face, his teeth biting his lip as he smiled. Alex’s hand was in William’s hair, that big heavy hand resting on the back of his head. 

The last one from just an hour ago, a scene a lot like Nicky’s surroundings. Huge bed, sunshine coming in from somewhere, one of them holding the phone to catch the angle: their legs hooked around each other, two massive hairy thighs that Nicky knew far better than his own. 

_disregard everything we texted you last night!!!!!!_

_also disregard me hooking up with your boyfriend hahahahaha_

_we miss you, please come soon please_

Nicky thought that he should feel angry and hurt when the two people closest to him in the world hooked up in Copenhagen and claimed it was because they missed him, like _that_ could ever be fucking true of Alex “life of every party, I promise I’ve grown up, why won’t anyone believe me” Ovechkin and William “tournament MVP, mister congeniality, no I’m not an asshole like my father, I promise, hahaha I have five siblings please like me best :(” Nylander. He should be angry and he should call them and yell at them, and he should swear off their dicks for the rest of his life. 

Instead, Nicky exhaled and closed his eyes. Something separated in him felt like it was knitting itself together, not that anything was broken in Nicky except his shoulder and not that he knew how to fucking knit, but. He wasn’t angry. Alex and William were together. Alex didn’t run away to Russia to lick his wounds and pretend he didn’t fuck men for four months. William probably stopped asking _does Alex hate me_ and _why don’t you visit him in Russia_ long enough to suck his dick and look immensely pleased about it. 

Nicky didn’t have to give one up to have the other. Nicky didn’t have to shut Alex out to focus on William. Nicky didn’t have to stop himself from texting Alex every fucking day during the summer. Nicky didn’t have to stay awake at night, slipping his arms from around William and turning over to his other side, wondering if he would ever have enough heart for William. Nicky could just—he could fucking live, with the three of them knowing each other. It was such a relief to finally feel as though he had a whole heart to himself. 

_So you guys had fun_

_Doctor said four more weeks of taking it easy so I’ll try to fly out today_

Nicky put his phone down on his chest, stared at the ceiling, then quickly typed another line and sent it. 

_Save some for me?_

Nicky hid his phone again, but only for a moment—it buzzed immediately, William again. 

_yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hurry up or we’ll call auston_

_your plane will be faster_

_sasha’s at practice, then i have practice and russia plays tonight_

_text me when you’re here_

_we miss you so much_

Nicky had to put his phone away. He had to get dressed and check out. If he caught the next plane to Copenhagen, he would be with them by lunch. 

*

Nicky let himself into Alex’s suite early in the afternoon. He left his shoes and suitcase by the door, his suit jacket on the couch, and held off on undressing further until he reached the entrance to the bedroom. 

Alex was bundled up in all the layers the bed had to offer, snoring enough to register a noise complaint except that his snoring was an instant cue for Nicky, after all these years, to shut his eyes and immediately fall asleep. Nicky started to undo his belt and the clinks of the buckle were enough to wake Alex with a start, his drowsy eyes finding Nicky immediately. 

“You here?” Alex asked. “Come to see some games?”

“Came to see you.”

As Nicky stripped down to his shorts, Alex turned on his other side, unwrapping himself from his bed burrito to make room for Nicky. Once Nicky was in bed, he was soundly tucked in with Alex’s big arms wrapping him up tight, a thigh finding its way between Nicky’s own. 

“Go back to sleep,” Nicky said. “I’ll be here.” 

“You mad?” Alex asked, his lips pressed against Nicky’s hair. 

“I wish,” Nicky laughed. “Then you could both spend all summer making it up to me. No, I could never enjoy that. Too guilty.”

“You don’t do that already with William, letting him make everything up to you? Everything we do during the year? Every spring?”

Nicky opened his eyes to that, and found that Alex had his eyes firmly closed. He lifted a hand to brush back Alex’s hair, then cupped his jaw and kissed him. He kissed him again, holding Alex closer and kissing him until Alex finally kissed him back.

“I’m sorry. Sasha, look at me. I'm sorry,” Nicky said as Alex finally opened his eyes. “I’m sorry if I made you feel unwanted. How could you think I don’t want you?” 

“People think lots of things,” Alex said. “Not the craziest thing I’ve thought, probably.”

“Get back to your nap.” Nicky tightened his arms around Alex and kissed him again. “I want you so much. I always want you. Start snoring, please, so I can finally sleep again.” 

“Can sleep a lot better when you’re done talking out of your ass.”

Alex emanated heat in the worst way, especially in the middle of a spring day under layers of bedclothes, but Nicky burrowed closer all the same. He closed his eyes and breathed as he felt Alex relax in his arms again, bit by bit until he was boneless again, heavy against Nicky’s body and finally asleep.

*

Nicky woke up minutes or hours later, weird parts of him sweaty as people talked around him. He rubbed at his eyes and saw Alex standing by the closet, pulling on a white button-down shirt as William watched him from the edge of the bed. At Nicky’s movement, both of them turned and grinned at him. William outright dove at the top of the bed, leaning in to kiss him before he retreated again.

Not all the way back to the foot of the bed, but somewhere around Nicky’s knees; now that Nicky was awake, William could use Nicky’s legs for back support, elbows leaning on him as he watched Alex finish dressing. 

“You got me a babysitter?” Nicky asked. 

“Dinner date,” Alex laughed. 

“You want a babysitter? I could be a sexy babysitter,” William said.

“Ugh, no,” Nicky replied. 

“Get a big car, pull up to the carpool lane—”

“You love making it weird.”

“Oh, you’re right,” William sighed. “I should go find someone _normal_ to fuck. Someone named Steve or Brian, who drinks whiskey to impress me and thinks I don’t know how to read.”

Nicky’s eyes met Alex’s; neither of them looked very impressed. 

“Where should we eat?” Nicky asked. 

“I’ll find a place,” William said. “Or we stay here. Or we eat with the team. Do you think if you showed up with your broken shoulder and a sad face, they’ll let you eat team dinner?”

“Yeah, find a place,” Nicky said. “I should walk around before sitting for a game. I’ve only been sitting or lying down all day. And I’m hungry. I only ate a little on the plane.”

William stared at Alex. “You didn’t feed him?”

“You sound like my mother,” Alex said. 

“You love your mother,” Nicky said.

“Not when she sees your big ass and asks if I fed you lately. Where she thinks you get that big ass in the first place—”

“I want to visit you in Russia and meet the sheep,” William interrupted. 

“Sheep are mean,” Alex said. “Run at you and scare you, staring with their creepy square eyes. I love them.”

“There used to be sheep by the rink in Gävle where we practiced,” Nicky said. “I hated them, too. Mean fuckers.”

William laughed and pat Nicky’s ass over the covers. “Now we know who your real parents are.”

“Oh,” Alex said softly. “That would explain so much.”

Nicky shifted to adjust the pressure on his bad shoulder. Around now, he would have wrestled William to the bed, pinned him and turned it filthy, but he was still hurt and—

—and this was nice, he and William sitting back in bed, watching Alex get dressed. All of them talking and laughing, the way they seemed to fit together. Nicky found he couldn’t breathe for a moment, thinking of all the times he had wished to tell Alex something funny William said, or ask William to find his way to Washington, all the times they might have found their way to this. Wasn’t he supposed to be the smart one? Instead, he had kept them all apart. They could have had this, and they didn’t, and it was his fault. 

Nicky swallowed the hard lump in his throat and focused on William and Alex again, anything but the thoughts swirling in his head, his skin too tight over his body. 

“Why don’t your jackets fit you?” Nicky asked. “Your sleeves are too big, the jacket’s too long, and your pants, too.”

“It’s the end of the season,” William said. “Everything’s falling off me by March, it’s awful.”

“No, he always looks like this,” Nicky said. 

“I don’t like tight jackets,” Alex interrupted. “Everyone wears them too tight, I don’t like it.”

“They’re not tight, they’re fitted.”

“They’re fitted _tight_. I’m a millionaire, let me be comfortable.”

“At least you’re not wearing those sweatjeans anymore.”

“Ummmmm, _what_?” William asked. Nicky didn’t have to tell him to look it up—the phone was already in William’s hand while Alex looked at Nicky, not upset or annoyed but _oh here we go again_. 

“Oh… my god…” William grinned at Alex and then flopped onto his stomach, coming closer to Nicky. “I need these. I _need_ them. Actually, we all need them. All the boys do. Do you have them? Did you burn them?” He looked over his shoulder at Alex, who beamed horror and pride and smugness. “Where did you get these and can I have like, ten or twelve pairs, _please_. Shit, if we could get them like skinny jeans—”

“Well, this was nice,” Nicky said. “I have to go back to Sweden, sell my house, move, quit hockey, never speak to either of you again.”

“Oh, Nicky,” Alex said. “You’ve dressed _much_ worse.”

“Yeah, fucko, don’t even try that with me. You scarred me for life before your goalie taught you how to dress,” William said. 

“I was never—”

Nicky’s protests were drowned out by stereo bursts of outrage, Alex shouting and counting on his fingers his one thousand fashion crimes from their twenties while William kneeled up on the bed and reminded Nicky of his bad haircuts, bad experiments with hair dye, _bad everything_. 

“YOU’RE ONLY MAKING ME STRONGER,” Nicky shouted over the noise. 

Suddenly Nicky found himself manhandled into bed, the two monsters he loved with his whole entire heart taking care to grope him but not hassle his shoulder too much. William straddled Nicky’s hips while Alex, for the first time in his life, carefully lay down next to Nicky, leaning up on his elbows so he could see Nicky’s face and smile at him. 

“I have to go,” Alex said. “Team dinner and game, but we’ll come back here, okay?”

William bent down to rest his chin on Nicky’s chest, the two of them forcing Nicky’s neck into increasingly weird angles because that was what he had missed in the one evening they had spent together: his two weirdos found their own beautiful strange wavelength, something that only made him fonder of both of them. He didn’t think it was possible, but then it happened. 

“Yes,” Nicky said. William was lightly holding his arms down until Nicky pushed him off so he could touch both their faces, their sharp defined jaws and intense blue eyes that were watching him so softly. What the fuck. What the _fuck_. 

“So you both still want me,” Nicky asked, “even if you want each other?”

Alex said his name so softly, a crushed thing wrenched out of his throat. He sat up and reached for Nicky’s hand. Alex turned Nicky’s hand, kissing his palm, his wrist, bunching up his fingers into his hard grasp and kissing them, too, before he looked to Nicky again like he’d just been wounded. “Of course. Nicky, _always_.”

William watched both of them, then looked to Nicky. “Yeah,” he said, his voice harder than Alex’s. “Did you—how could you think we wouldn’t? Are we watching the same show, here?”

Nicky smiled a little. “I just wanted to make sure.”

“Well, that’s—don’t do that,” William said. “I love you, and I like him a lot, too, and you can deal with that until you’re ready to kick me out of bed forever.”

The three of them lingered on the bed a little longer. William’s defiant expression faded the longer he sat on Nicky, looking between the two of them like a puppy feeling a lot of things bigger than its puppy body. Except, he was a grown man and all he could do about it was hold their hands, Nicky’s and Alex’s, and try to look like he wasn’t scared of whatever had grown between them. 

“Come on,” Nicky said. “Let me get dressed, let Alex go to dinner.”

William reluctantly climbed off Nicky, then leaned in and kissed Alex. “Fuck Slovenia _up_.” 

Nicky watched as Alex looked so pleased to be kissed, a perfunctory little _bye see you later_ kiss. He sat there for a moment and pushed William’s hair out of his face, smiling and saying nothing. Once he had his fill, he leaned down and kissed Nicky, too, before he got up and left.

“Oh, you’re in for it,” Nicky said as Alex gathered his things in the other room. “Once he likes you, you’re done for other people.”

“ _Finally_ ,” William laughed. “I’m sick of other people. Bring on you old bastards, I love it.”

*

Worlds ran for another two weeks and in those two weeks, some things had changed and some hadn’t. Nicky’s shoulder was better every day, surely in part to his two hypervigilant boyfriends who made sure he never lifted anything heavier than a glass of water while he was recovering. Most days, Nicky found himself propped up in bed by infinite pillows and one of two thick, broad-chested, mouthy jerks who whispered filth in his ears and held him firmly while his hips bucked against the other. 

Alex and William, so disgustingly competitive that one would think they were professional athletes, argued over who would torture Nicky above and who would wreck him below, earnest to argue until the end of time over why both were amazing and the best and why couldn’t they share minds or soulbond or something so they could experience both at the same time. 

And they were _sober_ for these conversations. Sweaty, fucked out, hoarse, disgusting, glowing, brains filled with love and mouths spilling over with nonsense, but sober. 

The night of the gold medal game, the three of them gathered in the living room of Alex’s suite in front of the giant TV, sharing dinner and beers while they watched the game. Nicky, leaning against an arm of the couch with his feet in William’s lap, looked down the row of them: Alex at the other end, drinking a beer, wearing only tiny red boxer briefs and his bronze medal; William in the middle, drinking a beer, wearing only a pair of swim trunks because Nicky had ruined his last pair of sleeping shorts earlier in the day. 

Nicky looked down at himself, wearing sleep pants, a t-shirt, no medal, no shoulder sling, and wondering how the fuck he had ended up being _the clothed one_. 

“Take my pants off,” Nicky said. “While they’re on intermission.”

“The game,” William whined. 

“It’s hot,” Nicky said.

“Yeah it is,” Alex said. 

“No, it’s _warm_ ,” Nicky said.

“Oh, okay,” William said, and helped Nicky out of his t-shirt and pants, down to his boxer briefs. He brought Nicky’s feet into his lap again and picked up his beer, continuing to catch them up on the low-level Canadian gossip they had missed in Washington. Nicky sat back with his own beer and slouched a little, enough for his foot to nudge Alex’s hand on William’s thigh.

“What?” Alex asked. 

“Nothing,” Nicky said.

“You wanna be in the middle?”

“I’m always in the middle.”

“ _I’m_ always in the middle,” William corrected. “Middle’s awesome, you guys are weird. Who _doesn’t_ love the middle.”

As if on cue, Alex splayed his thighs, laying one heavy leg across William’s lap and under Nicky’s legs while William laughed. 

“Still love it?” Alex asked.

“Yes. BURY ME IN THIGHS.”

Alex leaned in and kissed William’s neck; judging from the yelp, Nicky figured there were more teeth involved than William expected. Nicky shifted another pillow under his back and watched them: Alex’s arm wrapped around William’s shoulders, his beer on the table while his fingers idly stroked the top of William’s thigh. William leaned against Alex’s chest, the two of them intently watching TV while William ran his fingers through Nicky’s pale excuse for leg hair. 

“The Americans are gonna win,” Alex said. 

“They can still fuck it up. I won’t believe it until Canada’s crying,” William said. 

“I would say Claude cries so pretty, but they banned crying in Philly,” Nicky said.

“The birds really went to their heads,” William laughed. 

It was late on the last night of the tournament; Nicky had appointments in the next few days to follow up with the people taking care of his shoulder and arm. Further than that, the three of them hadn’t talked about it, not really, not more than the vaguest promises of future pleasure and pain they would inflict on each other. _See if I can’t get your legs over my shoulders by August. I perfected a marinade recipe, you’ll see if it isn’t amazing on everything this summer. So help me god you’re using sculpting cream on your hair or I’ll never suck your dick again._

“Alex, come home with me,” Nicky said, his eyes fixed on the TV so he didn’t have to see Alex form a polite refusal. “Both of you, obviously, but.” 

Nicky dared a look down the row of them; he didn’t see Alex avoiding his eyes and trying to find a way out. He saw Alex looking right at him, and his eyes darting at William, too. Alex stretched out a hand, joining William’s hand on top of Nicky’s legs, his fingers turning to scratch a little at the inside of Nicky’s knee. Nicky jumped a little, but Alex kept his hand there. 

“You like invitations, fancy engraved ones, so.” Nicky tried to smile like he wasn’t terrified, but it was hard, it was so hard—and why was it so hard to show them how much he wanted them? 

“Please stay with me,” Nicky said. “Both of you, for as much of the summer as you want. You know my trainer takes over my life in June or so, if you want to—I don’t know, come for that, or leave before that, or whatever. There’ll be other Swedes there so you won’t just have me and be bored, and you won’t… you won’t be missing anything.”

Alex sighed heavily, then got up and moved to the other end of the couch. He and Nicky and William worked something out, Nicky moving his giant ass further down the couch so he could lie back in Alex’s arms, cradled between Alex’s legs. As Alex ran his fingers through Nicky’s hair, William polished off the rest of his beer, burped loudly, then lay down between Nicky’s legs, his head against Nicky’s good shoulder, his hair within reach of Alex’s fingers. 

“I’ll come with you,” Alex said. He kissed the side of Nicky’s head and Nicky tried not to shake as he released the breath he had been holding. “I’ll stay a little, then go see my family and come back to both of you, okay?”

“Can we go see your sheep?” William asked.

“I told you they were creepy.”

“Well, we’ll take a day trip so they can’t scare us in the dark. Aeroflot’s like, two hours to Moscow.”

“You just want to see my mama’s museum, don’t you?”

“No,” William lied. “But if she _wants_ to show us all your sweaty jerseys and your sheep and make me eat my weight in dumplings, I wouldn’t say _no_.”

Nicky pushed back against Alex and pulled William closer. He closed his eyes and tried only to feel: the rise and fall of Alex’s chest beneath him, the kisses William pressed against his chest, the fingers Alex threaded through Nicky’s hair, William’s hand in the leg of Nicky’s shorts, his thumb tracing the crease of Nicky’s hip and edging closer to the base of Nicky’s cock. 

“What do you want,” Nicky whispered. His hand rubbed circles between William’s shoulder blades, hoping that if he pressed down, he could get what William was teasing. It worked, a little—William adjusted himself, the better to line up his hips with Nicky’s, the better for his mouth to find the base of Nicky’s neck and bite him, his hips pushing against Nicky’s as he sucked a mark into him. It was obscene, how loud Nicky had become in bed since both William and Alex conspired to drive him out of his fucking mind, except Nicky had thrown off the last fuck he had to give _weeks_ ago and he hadn’t seen it since.

What William wanted became obvious as he left Nicky high and dry, wandering off to the bedroom without a moment’s notice. Alex took up where William left off and pulled Nicky higher up, closer against his chest, so he could kiss the side of his neck and leave a bite mark of his own. His hands moved down, one playing with Nicky’s nipple while the other slipped beneath the waistband of his shorts to loosely grip Nicky’s cock. Alex kept Nicky bared like that, gasping, until William returned with lube, his shorts abandoned somewhere in their bedroom. 

“See, this is so efficient, why didn’t we do this before?” William asked as he sat back on his heels and dripped lube over his fingers. Nicky opened his eyes and could feel Alex beneath him, his chest tense and his arousal hard against Nicky’s back. The two of them sat back and watched William open himself up again, stroking himself and fucking himself until he looked at them through half-lidded eyes and took a deep breath. 

“Sit up, maybe?” William asked, motioning to the back of the couch, the “normal” way they had been sitting back when they were on the same plane of reality as the gold medal game on the big TV. Alex helped Nicky sit up and pulled his briefs the rest of the way off, his hand gripping the base of Nicky’s cock as William lowered himself onto him. Just as Nicky thought he would die from watching this, as he had thought every time his two most prominent sexual fantasies had come together to fuck him, William leaned over and kissed Alex, drawing out his lip, biting it, the two of them lost in a kiss that threatened to drag William off Nicky. Nicky held on, gripping William’s hips, his thumbs pressing painfully hard as he tried to restrain himself from thrusting into William.

He could only hold out so long and William’s moan broke his kiss with Alex. As William settled into a rhythm, Alex held onto William, an arm firm around his waist and his hand on William’s cock. William cried out each time he sank down on Nicky, his cries louder every time he met Nicky’s thrusts, every time Alex’s hold around him grew tighter and his strokes faster. William came first, his high pitched gasps echoing in the room as Nicky finished in him. 

Nicky leaned forward and pressed kisses against William’s chest, licking at the beads of sweat as William caught his breath. Before long, William turned to Alex and pushed a hand against Alex’s chest until Alex was next to Nicky on the couch, thigh-to-thigh. William weakly reached for Alex’s shorts, then shook his head and lifted himself off Nicky.

“I want you, too,” William said as he stood up. Nicky tried not to look at the slick between his thighs, but it was that or look at William’s face and the blatant hunger in his expression as he stared at Alex and Alex’s cock. “Fuck me through it. I want it.”

Nicky wanted to laugh as he watched Alex’s face; his brain seemed to need a moment to completely reboot itself before he pulled his shorts off and reached for William, his fingers clinging to William’s hips. Nicky leaned over to help, slicking his hand up before he wrapped his hand around Alex and guided him inside William. Once William had settled himself on Alex, Nicky turned Alex’s face and kissed him, a filthy tonguefuck of a kiss that couldn’t begin to compete with the way he was fucking into William after Nicky had left him sore and used. Alex opened his eyes to look at Nicky and press their foreheads together, every sensation overwhelming him. As Alex came, William slowed down and held Alex through it. William lifted himself up and wrapped his arms around Alex and as much of Nicky as he could manage, which was something like a headlock and something he was too boneless to fix. 

“Fuck,” Nicky whispered.

“Someone’s going to have to carry me,” William said, his lips pressed to Alex’s throat. “Also buy me bionic legs. And a new prostate. And more clothes.”

“Russia’s going to have a lot of questions about how much come is on this couch,” Alex said. “Remind me to care about that someday.”

“No,” Nicky said. 

Nicky turned his head slightly and noticed Alex was still wearing only his bronze medal around his neck. He cackled and held it out for them to see. William snorted and Alex looked at it fondly like, _oh, you're here, too_. 

“Alex, carry us to bed.”

“Who’s gonna carry _me_ to bed?”

William was the first to move, though not very far—he stretched out along the couch, trying to close his legs but finding they just limply hung open and that was that. 

“So…” William addressed the damp, heavily-breathing silence. “We’re going to Sweden tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Nicky said. “Yeah, we’re going to Sweden. And we’ll do it all again tomorrow.”

“Saves money on a trainer,” Alex said.

The three of them pushed themselves closer together, Alex’s arm around Nicky’s shoulders, William’s legs draped across both of them. On TV, the Americans were still celebrating and the Canadians were still crying, and everything was exactly as they wanted it. 

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/screamlet) | [reblog](http://screamlet.tumblr.com/post/172223116831/fic-copenhagen-locked)


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